I’m considering a membership, just wondering if it is possible to house/pet sit with children? Is it likely that we would be considered? My kids are aged 8 and 2, I’m wondering if some families would like to have kids around if that is what their pets are used to, or is preference always for solo/couples?
Some families sit together. You can search for such references in previous posts on the forum and there have been some good exchanges. There’s a magnifying glass on the upper right for searching.
Hi @Beck , Welcome to the group.
Having children will reduce the sitting opportunities available to you but, one of the good things about THS is that there is something for everyone.
When looking for sits there is a ‘family-friendly’ filter that you can activate to help you.
Good Luck 
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Agree with @Colin…there is something for everyone but not all sits are the right fit for children.
We do not accept HS with kids, because we do not feel our sit would be the right fit for it; we aren’t comfortable taking on the liability of little people in our home with our dog even though he came from a large family with kids. We don’t have the space to accommodate a family. We also understand/appreciate that your kids will always come first should there be an emergency, so we prefer to stick with adults (or those with adult-adjacent folk) only. We prefer HS that will be able to centre our dog for the sit.
That being said, we are just ONE example. I imagine there are a multitude of others with more laid back animals and bigger homes that would be able to accommodate…just may be slimmer pickings.
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I think it’s the 2 year old that will hold you back. Home owners have to think about whether their house is child-proofed. You might explore home exchanges – we did that when our kids were young and exchanged with families with children the same age as ours and that worked out really well. (Because toys!)
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Thank you all for your thoughts, that is very helpful. I did think there would be less likelihood we would be considered or that we would find suitable sits. Will have more of a think about it.
Homeowners have the option to list their sit as ‘family friendly’ which indicates they are open to hosting children. But within this sub set of people, it is possible they may prefer only a certain number of children or certain ages.
Right now, there are almost 1,700 sits that show up with that filter applied. While that only represents a small amount of the 6,000 plus sits on the site, that is a pretty decent number of listings from which to choose. That is the thing about smaller percentages of large numbers… it can still be a pretty big number.
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Hi @Beck our family of five started sitting about a year ago and we are currently on our 17th sit. Most of the hosts had never had a full family sitting for them but thought their pets would enjoy children. We do get our share of rejections but as you can tell, 17 sits within a year is enough to justify the membership cost. Good luck, hope you give it a try.
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